The embodiments described herein relate to a median plane determination apparatus for determining a median plane, based on volume data of a brain of a subject, and a magnetic resonance imaging system.
When slices are set to a brain of a subject, the slices might be set on the basis of a median plane. In this case, it is important that since the position of each slice changes depending on the position of the median plane, the position of the median plane is decided with possible satisfactory accuracy. The position of the median plane is generally determined on the basis of a longitudinal cerebral fissure. Thus, in order to determine the position of the median plane with possible satisfactory accuracy, there is a need to detect the position of the longitudinal cerebral fissure as accurately as possible. As a method for detecting the position of the longitudinal cerebral fissure, it is considered that a median line is utilized (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 5 (1993)-212013).
In the method described above, a longitudinal cerebral fissure lying in a tomographic image is tracked and a median line is determined based on its tracked line. It is thus known where the longitudinal cerebral fissure cuts across within the tomographic image. Since, however, the longitudinal cerebral fissure extends two-dimensionally, it is unknown where the longitudinal cerebral fissure cuts across within another tomographic image, so that the position of the longitudinal cerebral fissure cannot be determined with high accuracy. A problem thus arises in that the median plane cannot be determined with high accuracy even if the method described above is used.